How Can I Sleep If I Don't Have Dreams, I Just Have Nightmares
by I'mtheAlphahearmeRoar
Summary: The one where Derek foresees Laura's death.


_**Title taken from Staying Up by The Neighbourhood.**_

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><p>Derek doesn't know when they start, why they start or how long they've been going on for. Every night he'll wake up at four in the morning like clockwork, blankets kicked over the mattress and onto the floor, his body layered in cooling sweat, sticky and uncomfortable, the strong salty smell permeating the room so bad he has to open a window.<p>

The dreams (more like nightmares) are always of Laura leaving New York.

In one she's standing at the door, large travel bag slung over her shoulder, eyes cast down to the floor, avoiding contact while Dream Derek begs her to stay.

_"I need to go. I'm sorry. I'll be back as soon as I can. I promise."_

Derek always wakes up just as Dream Derek goes to grab her by the arm, fingers slipping through empty air where his sister was standing only a second ago.

In another she's gone one morning and there's a note on the table, scrawl messy like she'd been in a hurry.

_Something's not right. I don't know what. Gone back to Beacon Hills to find out. Will call when I know anything. Laura x_

The call never comes.

Derek always wakes up just as Dream Derek, after months of nail biting and waiting anxiously with mobile in hand, packs a duffle bag and locks the apartment before leaving to search for his sister.

He has no clue about the meaning behind these dreams. Both feature Laura leaving New York to travel back to Beacon Hills but… _Why? _Why would she do that? She wouldn't. Not now. Not when she's got an excellent teaching job at the local primary school. The pay is good and Laura adores every single child in her class. There's no reason as to why she would leave all that to re-visit the town that took everything they loved away from them.

He keeps the dreams a secret from Laura. He doesn't want to worry her. She has enough on her mind as it is; her relationship with her boyfriend (a barman from the local pub), children who live to cause her daily stress, the on-going payment of Peter's medical bills and making rent on time.

Even though he wants her to stay out of it for her own good, Laura is curious. Too curious _for _her own good. It's her nature. She has the ability to tell when something smells fishy. Sometimes literally. (Never again are they buying take-away from the fish n' chip shop on the corner.)

'Cause of this, making sure his dreams stay a secret is quite difficult.

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><p>It's Monday morning and the two of them are going about their usual routine like every other day—that's until Laura asks him about his well-being, noticing him slouched over at the breakfast table.<p>

"What's the matter, bro?"

He moves slowly, raising his head as much as possible until his neck starts to ache, head dropping back down onto the table. "Nothing. I'm okay," he mumbles, voice husky. He tries to stifle his yawn but nope, his body revels in its treachery of not listening to him.

"Uh huh," Laura says un-believably. "That's the reason why you're almost face planting into your cereal? Because you're so _okay _that you want to show the world this with milk and Cheerios stuck to your chin?"

Derek snorts, the pressure of air blowing from his nose causing bubbles in the surface of the milk. "I said I'm _fine_, Laura. Stop freaking out about my appearance and eat your breakfast. You have class at nine, remember."

"Oh, I know my schedule. Don't try and change the subject," Laura scolds, taking a huge bite out of her ham and cheese toastie. Derek rolls his eyes. "Hey! I heard that. That little noise of you rolling your eyes at me."

"M'not, n' I didn't," Derek grumbles. How she can even _know _that he has no idea. Her weird Alpha senses maybe. "Don't take your morning stress out on me. It's not my fault you teach those little monsters."

Laura scoffs, sipping from her favourite coffee mug. It's the printed moustache one she bought for two dollars from the small side-street store. Derek had teased her for weeks after getting it before she'd threatened to kick him out of the apartment. He hadn't doubted her.

"Those kids are my life and you know it, Der," she sighs. "If I'm stressed about anything, I'm stressed because of you."

"_Me? _Why me?" Yeah, so Derek sounds like a petulant child. Sue him.

"_You _because you're not talking to me." She grits the words, fingers clenching around the handle of her mug. Derek nearly gives in.

_Nearly._

"Maybe I want to have at least _some _semblance of a personal life without your meddling," he replies carelessly. He knows he's stepped over the line when he hears the loud bang of Laura's mug on the table. He spares a nervous glance up to see his sister glaring at him heatedly. Oh, man, _great_. It's her not-another-word glare.

"I do not _meddle_, thank you very much," she snaps. Derek winces as she takes a deep breath, closing her eyes. When she opens them he expects them to be flaring red, demanding he respect his Alpha, but instead they're the soft gaze he's grown accustomed to from a young age. "I just… I worry about you, Derek. You're all I have left. I swore to myself that I would protect you. If there's… If there's something wrong, something going on that I can help with, I want to know."

Most days, Laura's heart of gold wounds him in ways he doesn't understand. Probably because while she'd been looking out for her little brother in high school and making sure he didn't get hurt, he'd been sleeping with a hunter. One that murdered his entire family.

He betrayed them.

Laura most of all.

Derek sometimes wishes that she wouldn't care about him as much as she does. He doesn't deserve it. Any of it. Not after what he's done.

He destroyed their family. Helped an Argent, of all the despicable things to do. Yeah, maybe he unknowingly assisted her in her endeavours, but that doesn't change anything. Doesn't bring Peter's wife back, or his mother and father, or his two little brothers and little sister.

It doesn't erase the memory of his younger self bursting through the trees of the Preserve and onto Hale property, tears stinging his eyes as they flashed beta blue, ash and soot choking him, the sickening taste of death coating his tongue. Doesn't remove the picture of their house burning down to the ground, embers spitting and flames licking, structure creaking as it crumbled. Doesn't ease the remembrance of the terrified screams, the agonized cries of his family as they were trapped inside a scorching prison to which there was no escape.

"Derek, _please_. Talk to me."

Laura's voice, tense and cautious and almost _begging_, brings him back to the present. He lifts his head up, meeting her worried green eyes, thinks _please don't make me tell you, I'm trying to protect you_.

"I can't…" he breathes, vocals as weak as his body feels from the lack of sleep he's been acquiring. He looks back down before he can see the disappointment as it washes over her face. "Go to work. I bet the little monsters miss their head boss," he says as flatly as he can manage. He _knows _it'll anger her but at least then she'll leave and save herself from the extra stress he'll cause her if she is able to persuade him to open up.

"_Fine_. If you want to be a big baby and keep things from me, then fine," Laura growls.

Derek listens to her stand up, push her chair in forcefully and clean her dishes off of the table, dropping them hastily into the sink with an ear-ringing _clang_ before stomping out of the kitchen. The door slamming closed follows a minute later.

He doesn't end up moving from the table until his milk starts to smell sour, Cheerios floating limp and soggy, almost drowned in the white substance.

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><p>Derek's sleeping. It's eleven in the morning and he's exhausted, collapsing on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. Mentally exhausted more than physically? Possibly.<p>

As his eyes droop, body relaxing against the mattress, the argument with Laura is still on re-loop in his mind.

He dreams.

In the first three dreams they're sitting at the table like this morning, but Laura yells and snarls something different each time.

_"If you keep acting like this I just might leave you here and move back to Beacon Hills!"_

_"I've had enough of your shit, Der! I'm going back home and you're staying here alone where you belong!"_

_"Why am I here, Derek? Why am I living with the person who murdered my family? Am I crazy? I must be if I'm putting up with you!"_

The last dream is different, takes place in a dark woodland area. He doesn't see Dream Derek anywhere but he does see Laura. She's turning around, eyes wide in fear as she slinks back like a defenseless animal (she's an _Alpha_, she doesn't cower from _anything_), arms up to protect herself from whatever is looming over her.

Then she's being tackled to the ground, a midnight-black beast pouncing on her and roaring, claws slashing across her abdomen again and again and _again _and **_again_**—

Derek wakes up gasping, fingers violently curled into the sheets and chest heaving. After calming down and settling his breathing for a few minutes he tiredly checks the clock on the bedside table.

_5:30_.

He sits up, running his hands through his hair and rubbing them over his face before standing, stretching his arms behind his back, listening to his joints crack and moaning at the pain-and-pleasure feeling of relief. He yawns as he descends the stairs, treading into the kitchen. He opens the fridge and scourges the shelves for a quick and easy snack, grinning in triumph when he sees a packet of Doritos that he'd stored in there to maintain their crunch.

As he reaches in to grab the packet he notices cans of beer and grabs one of those too before closing the fridge. He shifts, resting his hip against the kitchen counter as he opens his beer, taking a long swig and groaning in contentment as the cold, bitter liquid burns his throat and quenches his thirst at the same time.

He gulps down a few smaller sips before placing the can down onto the counter, going to open his Doritos. While he does his eyes naturally settle on the kitchen table and he freezes, swallowing against the lump that builds in his throat, fingers slicing through the packaging as his claws snick out.

On the kitchen table, laying there as innocent as the day it was ripped from a textbook, is a note.

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><p><strong><em>I<em> _received __this prompt from writerdragonfly and I hope I did it justice._  
><strong>


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